Argo Tea serves SUNY Buffalo State

Students at SUNY Buffalo State, in Buffalo, N.Y., have a refreshing reason to visit the campus library these days. This spring, the dining services team, managed by Chartwells at Buffalo State, opened a licensed Argo Tea location within the Butler Library on the upstate New York campus—the first Argo Tea location in western New York and the seventh on a college campus. Argo is one of 18 dining operations on campus.

Buffalo State’s previous café concept was inconveniently located in the library, so moving the new café to a more central area was important. And with the move to more digital storage formats in the library, an entire wing of the building was available for transformation into the Argo Tea café. “We’ve transformed library stacks into a beautiful café,” explains Austin Craig, director of catering with Chartwells at Buffalo State. And within the new space, “we’re showing a 12% increase in same store sales from the [previous concept],” he says.

A new, separate entryway provides students with easy access to hot and cold tea-based beverages, snacks and sandwiches. “The big thing that we did is we built an additional entrance off of the library, off of the wing, it goes right off of the parking lot, versus in the past, you’d have to walk all the way around in the snow and ice,” Craig explains. “[It] allows students to come right through and get the nice lovely oatmeal in the morning, or one of the popular teas, like the Hibiscus Tea Sangria, on their way to class.”

Open during library hours to serve the large commuter student population, the new concept is a success according to Jane Calvert, resident dietitian and Argo Tea café manager with Chartwells. “They definitely love the Chai; it’s fantastic. And the Hibiscus Tea Sangria is probably the other most popular. People really love their iced drinks, even in winter. [Guests have] also really enjoyed the chicken sandwiches.”

It was a decision that brought the duo recognition at Monday night’s MenuDirections 2015 awards ceremony in Memphis, Tenn., which is part of FoodService Director magazine’s annual conference geared towards foodservice operators and suppliers.